'214 GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



coating of peat or other absorbent. Whenever lime is used in 

 a comjDOst — unless it be for the special purpose of hastening the 

 fermentation of vegetable substances — it ought to be mixed 

 witli salt by dissolying the salt first in water and slacking the 

 lime with it. A bushel of salt will thus prepare four bushels of 

 lime. Refuse brine will ans^rer very well. 



We come now to the use of ashes as a top-dressing. Of this 

 we may speak Avith more confidence. For while experiments 

 with lime have not invariably proved successful, owing, proba- 

 bly, to the soils designed to be benefited, we know of no 

 instances in Avhich the application of ashes has not fully repaid 

 the expense. If farmers would bear in mind that ashes contain 

 all the elements which assist the growth of plants, they would 

 be unwilling to part with a substance which they might turn to 

 such profit. If the quantity is small, let it be husbanded with 

 the greater care, instead of being sold, with the idea that so few 

 can do no good. One substantial farmer says : " I am now, 

 more than ever, fully persuaded of the value of ashes as a 

 manure. Nothing in the whole catalogue of manures, com- 

 pares with them on my land. The soil was a thin, clayey loam, 

 and where the ashes were sown there was a crop of excellent 

 clover, where for years the land had been almost unproductive." 

 Grasses are often more benefited by ashes than other crops, 

 since they require a greater amount of the salts which ashes 

 contain. For all permanent mowing lands, especially on the 

 ligliter soils, ashes are among the cheapest of manures where 

 they can Ijc had in sufficient quantities. In parts of Flanders 

 and, Belgium, countries in which the science of agriculture 

 has been carried to a high perfection, the great loss of vegetable 

 matters from the soil is constantly restored by ashes or bones, 

 together with other manures to be mentioned hereafter. Indeed, 

 almost all agriculturists, both in Europe and America, have 

 attached very great importance to the use of ashes. In some 

 parts of Germany they are held in so high esteem that they are 

 transported to a distance of eighteen or twenty miles, to be 

 used as a top-dressing. According to Prof. Liebig, witli every 

 one hundred and ten pounds of leached ashes of the common 

 • beech tree, spread upon the soil, we furnish as much phosphate 

 as five hundred and seven pounds of the richest manures could 

 yield. Phosphates are highly useful to all kinds of soil. O j 



